There is a popular saying that we become like the 5 people we hang out most with. Something about it must strike a chord with people, because It has been attributed to motivational speaker Jim Rohn, tech guru Drew Houston, and billionaire investor Warren Buffet., among others. Personally, I like this version that recently came across my news feed, attributed to Anonymous.
You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. CHOOSE WISELY. ~ Anonymous
This got me thinking, how many of us consciously choose our inner circle to mirror the kind of person we want to become? I know I don’t.
Let’s face it, most of us spend a lot of time with our work colleagues. We may like, admire, or respect them, but we didn’t hand-pick them.
Then there are our family members. We may love and respect them, but do we really want to be like them? How about our network of friends. Did we choose them for their admirable qualities, or because they lived nearby, our kids attended the same school, or they liked the same sports team?
It is really challenging to ask ourselves these questions, because after all these are the people in our inner circle, and we want to see them in the best possible light.
So I came up with a little game to help us figure out who our five peeps would be in an ideal world, and what that says about the kind of people we should be adding to our inner circle.
The Halloween dinner party game
Let’s throw a pretend Halloween dinner party for six. You get to invite five people — real or fictional, dead or alive, to join you. But there is a catch. Each person you invite has to embody a skill, quality, or personality trait that you would like to emulate.
Here is your writing prompt: Who is invited to your party? What will each of them bring to the table? And what will the dinner conversation be about?
Every time I do this I come up with different answers. It all depends on what I am trying to cultivate in the moment. Right now, I would invite Gertrude Stein for her creativity, thinking outside the box, and artist salons. Buckminster Fuller for his visionary insight into the future. Glennon Doyle for her honesty, vulnerability, and fearlessness. Brandi Carlile for her own genius, for recognizing the brilliance of Joni Mitchell and promoting inclusion in the music industry. And the Cone sisters for being ahead of their time collecting art and travelling the world in the earl 20th Century. (Okay, I know that’s two for the price of one, but they come as a package.)
The conversation would be far-ranging and intense — everything from art and culture to world politics and the future of the planet. They would get me thinking about what kind of legacy I want to leave the world, and how to use my remaining years wisely. Their collective knowledge and wisdom would lift me up and get me dreaming about the possibilities.
Now it’s your turn. Write the story of your dinner party and come share it in the Shero Sisterhood, where you will meet like-minded women who want to share their stories to make a difference in the world.
